A visit to the Mouse has just become even more expensive than before. Walt Disney World has raised the price of a one-day one-park ticket up to $82, and with their more expensive multi-day tickets also increasing, generally by almost 4%. Similar increases are occurring at Disneyland and most other theme parks will see this as an opportunity to raise their prices too.

As I know from my experiences earlier this year with my daughter at Disneyland (pictured left), the price of admission is merely the start of a day of gouging. These days the rip-off pricing of everything from water to food to souvenirs really removes a lot of the 'family friendly' feeling that the Disney parks used to endeavour to promote. There's nothing friendly about paying two to three times the cost of a bottle of water being sold right outside Disneyland, to buy the same bottle of water inside the park.

As I reported in February, it cost the two of us almost exactly $500 for two days at Disneyland after totaling up admission ($292 just for admission, $28 for parking), a little food, a couple of drinks, a photo and a minimum of souvenirs. If you were a typical family of four, that is $1000 – more if you weren't as stingy as me on food and sourvenirs!

But if you'd been planning on a Disney pilgrimage to Orlando, think carefully before tweaking your plans and going to lovely Key West instead. Dengue fever – a truly nasty tropical virus – is being reported there for the second season in a row. This is the first time since 1946 that Dengue fever has been reported two years in a row.

The virus spreads through the bite of an infected mosquito. So far the infection seems localized to Key West, and 'only' 24 people have been reported infected this year, but there are concerns that the virus and the mosquitos that carry it may spread further north.

Needless to say, bring lots of insect repellant and wear long sleeves and long trousers if visiting Key West, and if you're one of those people who seem to attract insects even when no-one else for miles around is being bitten, you might want to think carefully about your travel plans.

Another place to not go would be Greece. Along with the strikes that are making life a misery, the Greek 'Sect of Revolutionaries' has issued a leaflet threatening to bring chaos during the August holiday season in Greece.

The leaflet states that "Tourists should know that Greece is no longer a safe haven for capitalism. We aim to transform it into a war zone of revolutionary processes, with arson, sabotage, fierce demonstrations, bomb attacks, armed killings." They have also claimed responsibility for the murder of a Greek journalist last month.

What their leaflet does not explain is how this will benefit Greece or encourage lenders to give the money the country desperately needs.

Good news though if you are traveling to Indonesia in August. The Director General of Civil Aviation in this primarily Muslim country has ruled that all safety-sensitive aviation personnel must eat while on duty during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting that begins August 11.

The ruling will affect air traffic controllers, flight attendants, pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, airport maintenance personnel, airport ramp personnel, baggage and freight load dispatch controllers and security personnel. Doctors presented medical information and evidence showing the effects of fasting on the human body and the Director General decided that the effects were a safety issue.

Good news for Amtrak and lovers of train travel in the US. Amtrak has been increasingly constrained in recent years by a crippling shortage of passenger carriages. It has now announced plans to purchase 130 new single level carriages for its long-distance trains, at a cost of $298 million, with deliveries stretching over five years from October 2012 when the first new carriage is received.

This might sound like a lot of carriages, but it isn't really. It comprises 25 sleeping cars, 25 dining cars, 55 baggage cars, and 25 baggage/dormitory cars, and while some of them are going to add to the total number of carriages Amtrak has, others will be simply replacing some of Amtrak's oldest carriages, dating as far back as to the 1940s (yes, almost 70 years old!).

Amtrak said that it has a multi-year strategy to replace its entire fleet of carriages and locomotives. How many years is 'multi'? We're not talking 5 or even 10 years. Oh no. How about 30 years? One might almost wonder if, in 30 years time, some of the 'new' in 2012 carriages might almost be in turn due for replacement.

Some new rolling stock for London's Underground, too. This marks the receipt of the first air-conditioned trains, to be deployed on the Metropolitan Line, with more coming successively to the Metropolitan Line, then to the Circle Line, Hammersmith & City Line, and the District Line (by which time we are now talking 2013).

This is a massively overdue enhancement to London's Tube, and needs to be added to other lines in addition to these four lines – in particularly the Bakerloo Line.

The problem is that trains give off heat from their engines, from their braking, from their heaters (in winter), from their lights, and from their passengers. This causes the tunnel walls to slowly heat up – they are receiving more heat than they can radiate on into the surrounding earth. Each year, the tunnel walls get slightly hotter, and so too do the trains. In the winter, it is bearable to have the temperature in the tube perhaps 20 degrees warmer than outside on the street, but add 20 degrees to a hot summer's day and you're looking at temperatures in excess of 100 degrees.

Due to London having such an old and heavily traveled underground network, it has problems that newer underground systems don't have, and up until now all that has been done is in summer they sometimes hand out free bottles of water to passengers.

Talking about Britain, there are some slightly non-intuitive statistics being bandied about detailing what visitors to Britain see and do. In 2009, Britain had 30 million visitors from other countries. Only one in five visited a castle, one in six visited a historic house, and one in five visited a religious monument or church/cathedral. The Tower of London had 2.4 million visitors.

Is it possible to go to Britain and not see a castle, stately home, or church/cathedral? Apparently so, because apparently most people never visit any of these. I'm surprised.

Lastly this week, the death of RIM – maker of Blackberry phones – seems to have taken another step forward, with the lackluster announcement of their new version 6 operating system and the first new phone to take advantage of it.

Blackberry phones have continued to sell well over the last few years, but it has seemed to be as much market inertia as any real enthusiasm that has caused them to continue to sell in large numbers, and everyone has been very keenly waiting to see what the new OS and phones would be like, because the older operating system and range of phones currently available are massively outdated compared to the latest and greatest iPhone and Android phones.

Alas, it seems that Blackberry has released a product that is at best a catch-up 'me too' type product with no compelling reasons for people to buy it. Most ominously, a recent survey suggests that 57% of people who currently have a Blackberry are already considering switching to some other type of phone when they next upgrade, and with the continued enhancements in Android and iPhone capabilities, the core corporate base of Blackberry customers is being eroded every which way.

Here's a very severe analysis that perhaps overstates the threat to RIM, but which puts their problems in clear terms.

And, meantime, RIM has lost its place as most popular type of smartphone in terms of US market sales. This has now been taken, not by the iPhone, but by the ever broadening range of Android phones. Details here.